Tarela was caught at the at the Duke Real Food Campaign celebration "Food for Thought - A Food Day Dinner Celebration on Chapel Quad." The outdoor dinner on the main quad supported community-based, fair, humane, and ecologically sound food.

What other things do you do in your everyday life to be sustainable?

"I live to recycle. If I have a bottle and I can't recycle it, I will leave it in my room until I can find a recycling bin and I set my paper aside; I love recycling."

What sustainable efforts have you noticed around campus?

"I really like how Duke has the recycling bins in all of the dorms; I think that's really important… and how for all of the trash cans, they have different types of bins where you can put your paper and your plastic and stuff like that. I like the signs they have in the bathrooms, which say "this is how much water and paper you're using" and the water bottle re-fillers by the water fountains, that shows how many bottles of plastic you're saving."

If you could change one thing on campus to make it more sustainable, what would it be?

"This is a hard question but if I had to think of one major thing, it would be light. I think it’s important to learn how to conserve light right now. I know at home, we always worked on conserving our light, and here you can leave lights on as long as you want, and some of the dorms even have the lights on throughout the night."

Do you usually go to the sustainable events on campus?

"This is one of my first ones, so no, but I'm interested!"

Will you be caught green handed next? Caught Green Handed is an initiative of Students for Sustainable Living created to reward sustainability actions at Duke. Get caught doing something eco-friendly, and receive great prizes including t-shirts, stainless steel water bottles and reusable grocery bags! It's simple, just take actions throughout the day to reduce your environmental footprint and with a little luck, you could be Caught Green Handed! The contest will continue on a twice monthly basis throughout the fall semester.